Microsoft Office 2013 not compatible with Windows XP, Vista

Office 2013 is said to be only compatible with PCs, laptops or tablets that are running on the latest version of Windows i.e. either Windows 7 or not yet released Windows 8. According to a systems requirements page on Microsoft for Office 2013 customer preview, the Office 2010 successor is only compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012. This was confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson.

Further the minimum requirements states that systems need to be equipped with at least a 1 GHz processor and should have 1 GB of RAM for 32-bit systems or 2 GB for 64-bit hardware. The minimum storage space that should be available is 3 GB along with a DirectX 10-compatible graphics card for users wanting hardware acceleration.

Net applications has published data that indicates that as of now 51{b2f8038cca59418a55fa2a773bdd1308d9b98f2083b1773270b153fdacce5890} of PCs are still either running Windows XP or Windows Vista and only 42{b2f8038cca59418a55fa2a773bdd1308d9b98f2083b1773270b153fdacce5890} systems have Windows 7 on them. Considering these numbers, Office 2013 won’t be able to run on more than half of PCs across the globe.

The move by Microsoft is not surprising as it has already finalized 2014 as the year when all support for Windows XP will be ceased. This may well be the cause that Microsoft is not worried about these systems as they won’t be getting any support and customer would have to migrate to Windows 7 or Windows 8 for continued upgrades and support.

Ravi is the founder of Parity Media and currently acting as an editor of ParityNews.com. He is a technology enthusiast with keen interest in information security. Ravi has over 6 years of experience and is keen on raising general awareness about technology in society.